Dragon Haven by Hobb Robin Page A

had come with no resting place in sight. There had been only marshlands as far as the eye could see, nowhere for the dragons to get out of the water. Despite their grumbling, the dragons had had to stand overnight in the water, while the keepers had taken refuge on Tarman’s deck. The dragons hadn’t enjoyed the experience, but they had survived. But the water had been mild then, and the weather kind. “They’d have to endure it,” Leftrin said, and neither one spoke of how the acid might eat at injuries and tender tissue.
    After a few moments of silence, Leftrin added, “That’s always been a danger to this journey, Alise. The most obvious danger, actually, and one we’ve always had to live with. The first ‘settlers’ in the Rain Wilds were actually abandoned here; no one in their right mind would come here of their own accord.”
    “I know my history,” Alise interrupted a bit brusquely, but then added with a small smile, “and I definitely came here of my own accord.”
    “Well, it’s so that Bingtown’s history is the Rain Wilds’s history. But I think we live it here a bit more than you folks do.” He leaned on the railing, feeling Tarman sturdy beneath him. He glanced up and down the current of his world. “Strangeness flows with the water in this river, and it affects us all, one way or another. Trehaug might not be the easiest place in the world to live, and Cassarick is no better. But without those cities, Bingtown wouldn’t have Elderling magic to sell. So, no Rain Wilds, no Bingtown is how I see it. But what I’m trying to say is that generation after generation, decade after decade, young explorers have set out vowing they’re going to find a better place to settle. Some don’t come back. And those who do report the same thing. Nothing but an immense wide valley, with lots of trees and lots of wet ground. And the deeper you go into the forest, the stranger it gets. All the expeditions that have gone up this river have come back saying that they either ran out of navigable waterway, or that the river just flattened out, wider and wider, until it seemed there were no real banks to it anywhere.”
    “But they just didn’t go far enough, did they? I’ve seen enough references to Kelsingra to know that the city existed. And somewhere, it still does.”
    “The sad truth is that it could be under our hull right now, and we’d never know. Or it could be half a day’s journey away from us, back there in the trees, cloaked in moss and mud. Or it could have been up one of the tributaries we’ve passed. Two other Elderling cities either sank or were buried. No one is sure just exactly what befell them, but we know they’re underground now. The same thing could have happened to Kelsingra. Probably did happen. We know that something big and bad happenedhere a long time ago. It ended the Elderlings and nearly ended the dragons. It changed everything. All we’re really doing right now is following the dragons up the most navigable waterway, and hoping we come to something.”
    He glanced at her, saw her face pale under her freckles and her set mouth. He tried to speak more gently. “It only makes sense, Alise. If Kelsingra had survived, wouldn’t the Elderlings have lived? And if the Elderlings had survived, wouldn’t they have kept dragons alive somehow? In all the tapestries, they’re always together.”
    “But…if you don’t believe we can find Kelsingra, if you never believed we could find Kelsingra, why did you undertake this expedition?”
    He looked at her then, full in her gray-green eyes. “You wanted to go. You wanted me to go. It was a way to be with you, even if only for a time.” Her heart was in her eyes as he spoke those words. He looked aside from her. “That was what decided me. Before, when I first heard of it, I thought to myself, ‘Well, there’s a mission for a madman. Small chance of success, and so I’ll bet they pay accordingly.’ A chunk of money up front, and